Back in April 2013, the G5 Governments agreed to work together on a pilot scheme on multilateral and standardized exchange of tax information, with a new initiative on information exchange, based on the so-called FATCA (Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) exchange model.

Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Malta, Greece, Iceland and Colombia have agreed to also join this program on automatic exchange of tax information.

The finance ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK said in a joint statement:

“We very much welcome the announcement by Colombia, Greece, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Malta to join the pilot initiative launched by the G5 on the automatic exchange of tax information. In making this commitment and joining the large number of jurisdictions that have committed to date, Colombia, Greece, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Malta have recognised that those jurisdictions which will prosper in the future will be those which embrace tax transparency and work cooperatively to tackle tax evasion. In accordance with their announcement, we look forward to working with Colombia, Greece, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and Malta, notably to seize forthcoming opportunities and actively foster the automatic exchange of tax information in all organisations and bodies.”

The new standard, to be finalized early next year, will mark a significant change in the ability to tighten tax evasions. Following the addition of the above mentioned countries, 36 jurisdictions have committed to this project until now.